Creator Wizard Seth Dev Log #13 - Finishing the Prototype Tree Successfully

Today is tree day, again. If you are getting sick of trees I understand because I love trees but I am beginning to miss making structures of concrete and brick and so let us make one final improvement and then we can give trees a rest.

 Let's talk about this picture. In my mind this was supposed to be a twig, what I did not realize is that for the size of the twig that I was aiming for, the leaves are far too small. A tiny shoot off from a twig would have about 5 or 6 leaves, or one leaf bundle. Now I did already try scaling up the leaves and ran into this problem.

Which is to say that the twig looks overcrowded, and so I tried to delete some leaves and thin it out a bit but it still did not look correct. Something like this.

And so I noticed the shape of the leaves relative to one another was not natural. Leaves on most trees do not grow in this flat droopy manner. I'm not sure if any tree on earth does. So I attempted to remedy it with this.

Which is to give the leaves a more of a bundle like shape. However here I did not realize that I was using far too many leaves for the size of twig I was intending to create. So now I will scale them to the correct size for the intended use.

Now you might look at this picture and think to yourself, "but Creator Wizard Seth, this looks like crap" and you would be correct. However, it is more anatomically correct for the tree I am trying to create. I am not trying to create an alien tree inspired by 300 million year old fossils recovered from 8000 feet under the ice at the south pole with tiny alien leaves that glow green at night time. I am trying to create some familiar. Here is a branch with the leaves at the more correct size. 

And now you are thinking to yourself, "but Creator Master Wizard Seth, this still looks like garbage, what are you trying to prove here? I liked your old work better, are you getting worse at your craft? How is that even possible? Are you stupid?" and I would understand what you are saying because in fact it does in a way look worse than some of my older work. The reason for this actually is because of a change I made without explicitly telling you. Here is the geometry for the leaf I am currently using. It is absolutely the lowest amount of geometry that I can use for a leaf shape without using a square or a triangle. It consists of 4 triangles in a simple configuration.

And let us compare that to some leaves that I created a few days ago. Notice their shape is rounded. Now these leaves have something like 16 triangles, which is 4 times as much geometry but the benefits are obvious. (Wow he can do math)

Here we can see the larger and rounded leaves also provide a much better self shadowing effect. And the specular highlights are much more refined and visible per leaf. 

So the benefits are obvious. And I would rather create a smaller tree that looks better than a larger tree with obvious flaws. So I will go back to my old ways of the rounded leaves. Let us start back from the beginning. With a very fundamental component of the tree, the leaf. (Gee whiz this guy sounds smart)

46 triangles. This is 11 and a half times as much geometry as our minimal leaf. I have included an indentation in the center so the leaf is actually in two distinct halves. Then upon thinking about leaves in general I realize this type of leaf is actually very rare to the point that I am not even sure it exists. (Of course it does you idiot)

25 Triangles. Much better. Let us see if I really am as smart as I sound, let us put this leaf to the test and see what results we can achieve. (This guys a dumbass) 

This looks so much better. While moving forward with tree shape and branch complexity and accuracy I was in fact moving backwards with leaf geometry in the name of optimization. Let us move forward once again and complete a tree with this idea in mind. 

The branch seems... Satisfactory. Let us move forward with this branch concept and see what the full tree looks like. 

I would consider this a complete success for creating the ideal prototype tree. By prototype tree I mean the most basic possible tree that has reasonably accurate proportions and possesses a certain level of beauty. 

My brain is tired of trees, there is a lot of improvements I can do in the arrangement of branches, creating new species, the detail of branches, the proportions of the branches, the shape of the main structural branches, longer more complex branches with better realism as far as shape, and also adding a texture to the bark.